MAINICHI DAILY NEWS: Readers' Forum: Japan's agricultural antics .

To the Editor:

Recently the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled that the Japanese government's quarantine regulations on apples, cherries and other agricultural imports constituted a trade barrier and thus violate WTO rules.

The decision goes some distance in illustrating how Japan Inc. illegally tries to use claims of particularness (in this instance not to racial purity or cultural uniqueness, but to a mythical idealized metaphysical nation free of fungus, microbes, bacteria, etc.) to prohibit the import of foreign agricultural goods that are cheaper (up to 10 times in some cases), safer and of higher quality than equivalent domestic varieties.

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